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Making good on its promises to more seriously tackle\u00a0abuse on its network, Twitter this morning announced several more updates to its service aimed at silencing abusers, helping users better filter Twitter\u2019s\u00a0content, as well as making the abuse reporting process more transparent.<\/p>\n
The changes are one of many Twitter has rolled out in the past few weeks. Earlier this month, <\/a>it said would stop the creation of new, abusive accounts, offer safer search results, and collapse low-quality and abusive tweets from being shown. And more recently, the company began putting online bullies in \u201ctime-out,\u201d <\/a>when its algorithms identified tweets that appeared to be harassing \u2013 like those that use certain language or seem to be attacking another account that doesn\u2019t follow the poster in return.<\/p>\n This time-out feature was previously reported, but what Twitter is announcing today is an expansion of that. The company is now doing a lot more using its own technology to identify abusers\u2019 accounts and take action. In other words, Twitter isn\u2019t just mindlessly flagging accounts that tweet a single rude word or phrase, but is more closely\u00a0examining the behavior itself and the context.<\/p>\n The company doesn\u2019t detail what, specifically, it\u2019s doing on this front, as it doesn\u2019t want abusers to understand how its systems work.<\/p>\n But it does say it\u2019s focusing on accounts on penalizing and banning accounts that\u00a0violate its\u00a0\u201cTwitter Rules<\/a>.\u201d These guidelines prohibit, among other things, direct and indirect violent threats, targeted abuse and harassment, hateful conduct, doxxing (publishing private and confidential personal info), impersonation, self-harm, and the use of multiple accounts to engage in abuse.<\/p>\n These are all areas where Twitter has largely failed to act promptly in the past, having allowing frightening levels of online bullying to take place, as with\u00a0the\u00a0misogynistic, and ongoing threats<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0Gamergate<\/a> supporters against the women who spoke out about issues of sexism in video gaming culture;\u00a0tweets to Robin Williams\u2019 daughter after the actor\u2019s\u00a0suicide<\/a>, which included photoshopped images of his body; or racist tweets to actress Leslie Jones<\/a> of SNL and Ghostbusters fame,\u00a0as just a handful of examples.<\/p>\n More recently, Twitter has seen increased numbers<\/a> of neo-Nazi accounts, and even\u00a0accidentally ran a neo-Nazi ad<\/a> hours after it announced other steps it was taking to limit abuse. The company has also\u00a0suspended a number of white nationalist\u2019s accounts<\/a>, as well as notorious troll<\/a> Milo Yiannopoulos.<\/p>\n Those getting banned complain that Twitter is denying them free speech, but Twitter\u2019s Rules seem to indicate that when speech promotes hate and harassment, there are repercussions. Like in the real world, you still have the right to say things or\u00a0discuss your beliefs, but your words may\u00a0have consequences. (Such as getting fired from your job<\/a>.)<\/p>\n \u201cWe aim to only act on accounts when we\u2019re confident, based on our algorithms, that their behavior is abusive,\u201d says Twitter of its updated algorithms, in a blog post. \u201cSince these tools are new we will sometimes make mistakes, but know that we are actively working to improve and iterate on them everyday,\u201d its blog post explains.<\/p>\n Twitter tells us that accounts that violate its Twitter Rules will be removed if they continue to violate its rules, but declined to share how many users it has permanently banned to date.<\/p>\n To make sure abusers don\u2019t return, the company is using information users share when they sign up to connect the dots between banned and new accounts. This includes things like email, phone, and IP address, for example.<\/p>\n In addition, the company today is rolling out expanded\u00a0filtering tools that will let you filter your notifications to hide those which may be from abusers, like the ones without a profile photo (Twitter eggs), those without email addresses or phone numbers.<\/p>\n This step is useful to a point, but is more akin to sweeping the dirt under the rug. It\u2019s still there on the network, and now potential victims are less informed of the threats against them \u2013 which can be\u00a0dangerous in its own way.<\/p>\n![\"notificationfilterall\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/RSSPoster_PRO\/cache\/38b70_notificationfilterall.png?resize=640%2C158&ssl=1\")
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